Web 2.0 is a category of new Internet tools and technologies created around the idea that the people who consume media, access the Internet, and use the Web shouldn't passively absorb what's available; rather, they should be active contributors, helping customize media and technology for their own purposes, as well as those of their communities.

But Web 2.0 isn't just the latest set of toys for geeks, it's the beginning of a new era in technology — one that promises to help nonprofits operate more efficiently, generate more funding, and affect more lives.

These new tools include, but are by no means limited to, blogs, social networking applications, RSS, social networking tools, and wikis. On this page, you'll find articles on a variety of Web 2.0 tools and technologies. We'll continue to update this page, so be sure to check back to learn about the latest technologies for your organization.

Characteristics of "Web 2.0"

Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They can build on the interactive facilities of "Web 1.0" to provide "Network as platform" computing, allowing users to run software-applications entirely through a browser.Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and exercise control over that data. These sites may have an "Architecture of participation" that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it.This stands in contrast to very old traditional websites, the sort which limited visitors to viewing and whose content only the site's owner could modify. Web 2.0 sites often feature a rich, user-friendly interface based on Ajax,Flex or similar rich media. The sites may also have social-networking aspects.

The concept of Web-as-participation-platform captures many of these characteristics. Bart Decrem, a founder and former CEO of Flock, calls Web 2.0 the "participatory Web" and regards the Web-as-information-source as Web 1.0.

The impossibility of excluding group-members who don't contribute to the provision of goods from sharing profits gives rise to the possibility that rational members will prefer to withhold their contribution of effort and free-ride on the contribution of others.

Web 2.0 websites typically include some of the following features/techniques:

• rich Internet application techniques, often Ajax-based
• semantically valid XHTML and HTMLmarkup
• microformats extending pages with additional semantics
• folksonomies(in the form of tagsor , for example)
• Cascading Style Sheets to aid in the separation of presentation and content
• REST and/or XML- and/or JSON-based APIs
• syndication, aggregation and notification of data in RSS or Atom feeds
• mashups, merging content from different sources, client- and server-side
• weblog-publishing tools
• wiki or forum software, etc., to support user-generated content